this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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WhatsApp is officially getting ads (www.theverge.com)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
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WhatsApp is rolling out ads. In an update on Monday, Meta announced that it will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like status feature.

Meta says it will tailor the ads to your interests by using “limited” information, including your country or city, language, the channels you follow, and how you interact with ads on the platform. You can also change your ad preferences from Meta’s Accounts Center.

This isn’t the only change Meta is making to WhatsApp. The company will also start showing promoted channels when you click on the Explore button to find new ones to follow. It’s also rolling out the ability to subscribe to channels to “receive exclusive updates” as well.

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[–] dsilverz@friendica.world 1 points 19 hours ago

@MazonnaCara89 @Excrubulent I'm unable to reply your reply directly (for some reason, the Friendica instance I use can't see the Lemmy instance you're in; I'm suspecting it's because Solarpunk instance uses Anubis CAPTCHA and Friendica could be operating in a different manner from how Lemmy operates hence triggering Anubis for a server-to-server communication, but I'm not sure).

I'm replying through this reply to my reply.

Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.

Exactly. And many carrier operators over here (Tim, Claro, Vivo) offer "rate-less access" (i.e. won't count as consumed bytes) to Facebook, WhatsApp, among other mainstream platforms (sometimes TikTok).
Also, there are "Captive portals" (web-based Wi-Fi authentication for passwordless Wi-Fi networks) from many "free Wi-Fi hotspots" out there which uses "Facebook login" as a means of getting accessing to their "free Wi-Fi". Facebook (and, by extension, Meta and its platforms) is deeply ingrained into Brazilian's daily lives and I'm frequently told to "have a Facebook profile" for me, it's deeply annoying.

They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn’t build it in from the ground up.

Exactly!

@joel_feila:

jesus that some dystopian shit

Yeah... it's a deeply boring dystopian world. The world has been indistinguishable from Cyberpunk.